This is a circular to all emailable Spokes members... [Note that if you have recently sent us a change of email address, your change may not yet be in our database, so this message may go to both your old and new addresses] 1. SPOKES PUBLIC MEETING A reminder of our meeting on the City Council's Cycling Action Plan, now in preparation, and forming part of an Active Travel Plan. Main Speaker - Cllr Gordon Mackenzie, convener of the Transport Committee - the man with overall responsibility for the Plan. Tuesday 23 March, 7.30 - doors open 6.45 for coffee, stalls and chat. VENUE ** NOT our usual venue ** This meeting is at St Columba's by the Castle, Johnston Terrace. To confuse things further, there are two St. Columba's. Ours is the BLUE door, beside Castle Rock Hostel. This is your chance to find out what the Council intends, and to put forward your suggestions, questions and concerns. A good turnout of people will also emphasise to Cllr Mackenzie the level of concern that the Plan is really meaningful and puts us on the right track to meet the council's Charter of Brussels target for 15% of trips to be by bike by 2020. We will have a questionnaire/ feedback form at the meeting, so that after you have heard the talk and discussion you can leave ideas for Spokes to consider to put to the Action Plan project team subsequently. Once the Action Plan is in a draft form it will be put out to relevant organisations, including Spokes, for final consultation - we hope then to put it on our website enabling individuals to make their own response. We will try togive advance notice of this, as there is a fairly tight timescale for getting the Action Plan to the Transport Committee in July. For more about the meeting see the Feb 15 news item on our website here... http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/2010/02/public-meeting-city-council-action-plan/ 2. NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND CYCLISTS Spokes is concerned that some new developments – supermarkets, flats and others – are still appearing with inadequate bike parking and/ or access. Sometimes the Council didn't specify adequate conditions when giving planning permission; sometimes conditions were laid down but the developer didn't properly fulfil them and the council has not enforced them. Sometimes the devil is in the detail – e.g. Sheffield racks installed, but too close to each other, or to a wall. We are preparing a dossier of new developments with substandard or no bike parking and/or access. Please email spokesATspokes.org.uk to tell us of any examples you know which have appeared in the last few years. 3. COMMUTING WITH KIDS Spokes and the Bike Station are producing a fact-sheet this spring to provide information aimed at helping families complete their daily work/nursery/school travel by bike.  The fact-sheet will use case-studies to illustrate how people might use various options in practice on a day-to-day basis.  Any suggestions for the fact-sheet's content and how it might be used, or - if you cycle commute with your child/children -  offers to feature as a possible case study, would be very welcome (as soon as possible).  Spokes would like to set up an email group of people interested in this aspect of everyday cycling, as a sounding board for the fact-sheet and possible follow-on practical initiatives. If you'd like to be involved contact katherineATtusks.org.uk / 667 5576. 4. GENERAL ELECTION Nearly all powers for cycling matters in Scotland lie with the Scottish Parliament and local councils, so Spokes will not be doing much for the UK general election. The CTC has a UK-wide 'vote bike' campaign at www.ctc.org.uk/votebike, which you might like to look at, though again their manifesto relates mainly to England. See (5) below for Edinburgh Election Question Time public meetings hosted by WWF. If you want to contact your own local candidates, a site which lists all known candidates so far is www.yournextmp.com - of course more will be putting their names forward as the election gets closer. Spokes members who we know to be standing in the election are... a. Edinburgh North & Leith - Mark Lazarowicz, longstanding spokes member and currently Labour MP. b. Edinburgh South West - Tim McKay, LibDem, spokes member for about 3 years and currently an Edinburgh councillor. c. Edinburgh East - Sheila Gilmore, former member for many years, but not renewed recently. 5. STOP CLIMATE CHAOS SCOTLAND E-ACTION Along with many other Scottish organisations, Spokes is signed up to SCCS. The Scottish Government is about to propose to the Scottish Parliament a roadmap to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2020, but there are concerns that this may get watered down. An e-action is being hosted for SCCS by WWF. To take part, go to http://scotland.wwf.org.uk/how_you_can_help/campaign_with_wwf_scotland/ then click on "Ask your MSP to keep Scotland ambitious." On the same WWF page is a general election link - this includes details of election question-time meetings in Edinburgh on April 22 and April 28. They are themed around climate change, so it's a good opportunity to ask transport questions. 6. PHOTOS FOR SPOKES MAPS AND BULLETIN We're looking for pictures to put on the front cover of the new edition of our Edinburgh map, due out in late April. Suitable pictures might also be used in a future Spokes Bulletin. No payment is on offer, but you will of course be credited in the map or the Bulletin. If possible, also send a few words - e.g. where and when picture(s) were taken. ***NOTE: Photos to be considered for the map must be sent in the next few days. We want pictures of one or more people using bikes - commuting, shopping, school, leisure - or good/interesting bike facilities, preferably with a bike in the picture - or anything else you think might fit the purpose. We're not looking for racing or mountain biking. The pictures should ideally be taken in Edinburgh, the Lothians or the surrounding area. If you can offer one or more picture(s) for consideration, please email them to timATvizualz.co.uk AND to davedufeuATgmail.com. BUT PLEASE - the size of your email INCLUDING ALL ATTACHMENTS must be less than 2MB (2000K). If your pictures are too big, hopefully you can re-size them using editing software; or if you have a really fantastic picture and can't re-size it, phone Tim 0131 554 7264 before emailing. Best of all, if your picture(s) are on a website, send us the link to that rather than sending an attachment. Dave du Feu for Spokes